Engineering & Leadership Articles
Advice and Guidance for Engineering Leaders
As part of our mission to help engineers become incredible leaders, we regularly publish articles on topics like productivity, leadership, people management and project management, among others. You can scroll through our latest articles below.
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Latest Engineering Leadership and Management Articles
Improve engineering productivity with one simple question
One of the things I get asked about more than almost anything else is about how to improve engineering productivity. Not surprisingly, engineers love to find better ways of doing things, not just in their designs, but in the way they work as well. My articles on...
Rich engineer, poor engineer – the case for engineering entrepreneurship
Two months ago, one of my co-workers got news that many of us dread that we'll one day get ourselves. "Ted," his manager told him, "we have to let you go." Ted (not his real name) had suspected that this might be coming. Between the tough economic climate, and...
How to create your routine
[Note from Pat Sweet: Today's post is a guest post from David Yung - an engineer with a passion for professional development. You can read more from David here.] We all have heard about routine before. We are taught to set routines at a very young age (remember...
Putting first things first
"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work." - Stephen King "I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” - Stephen R. Covey All engineers need to learn to be productive. We tend to get a lot thrown at...
Leadership 101: Participative Leadership
Leadership 101 is a series I'll be doing on different leadership theories, models, and ideas as they pertain to the practice of engineering. Today's topic is participative leadership. I am often asked about leadership, how its defined, how to develop leadership...
What leaders should care about
Everyone knows that leadership is important for an organization to do well. That much is clear. What most people struggle with is how to actually practice leadership. What exactly do you do if you want to be a leader? Like so many other things in business and in life,...
The Engineer’s Guide to Running Productive Meetings
Imagine this... It's 9:57 AM. You show up to the meeting room where you're supposed to be discussing an important project - on time - to find out that you're the only one there. You wait around for a little bit for other people to show up, but...
How to delegate to make sure things actually get done
One of the most important things an engineer or engineering manager can learn to do is delegate. Unfortunately, engineers are generally pretty terrible at delegating. As an engineer myself, I think I know why. We're perfectionists. Our way is the only way....
8 Leadership Lessons from a Military Engineer
Truly effective leadership lessons are simple to comprehend, but not easy to implement. This is the work all leaders must undertake.
Engineering Q&A – Sustainability & Machine Design
Hello there, my fellow engineering leader! Over the last couple of years, I've received a ton of email from my readers (a metric ton, since I'm in Canada). They've asked all sorts of really interesting questions on all facets of engineering, management, leadership and...